Fallout: Hey Sarah
by jameslplummer
Summary: Rated M for violence and graphic language. The last sentient deathclaw travels ever east across the wastes, and unwillingly picks up a traveling partner in the form of a child. Cover art by the lovely pongldr.
1. Burning Blood

The fire ants poured out of what remained of the small house, climbing over the broken walls to meet the intruder. The sound was intimidating alone, as dozens of limbs knocked over planks of wood and shattered glass. Their chitinous bodies rubbed against each other in their haste, producing sounds that would unnerve the most hardened veterans. Gireesh ran into the thickest procession of the mutated ants. Thoraxes and heads were crushed under thousands of pounds of bone and muscle. Pale yellow blood splattered the ground as thin limbs were torn out of their sockets by his claws. He made sure none of them were given a chance to click their iron-hard mandibles, preventing even a single spark to ignite the gases they produced in sacks in their throats. The fight, if you could even call it that, was over in a few seconds.

Gireesh wiped his claws clean on the remains of an old couch. Turning around, he admired his handiwork. Only a few crippled ants made feeble movements, their antenna and limbs twitching in an alien fashion. The croaks of the dying ants soon faded, and were replaced by the sound of the old farm house protesting as a gust buffeted through it. A loud guttural hissing sound penetrated the wind, giving him a start. He scanned the carnage, searching for the source of the piercing unearthly sound. Further inside the house, the door to the basement was torn apart, with the entryway coated with dirt held together by ant saliva. The screams of the ant queen down below in the den, wailing for her lost children, put a sliver of anxiety into his heart. He put a leg in the hole, and quickly realized he was several times too large to ever fit inside.

Deciding it wasn't worth the effort to tear apart the door frame to get at the grief stricken mother, he rummaged through the remains of the kitchen. His stomach grumbled as he skewered a box of Sugar Pops on a claw, only to find it to be empty. A can of Cram on the ground snagged his attention as it touched his foot, but he found it to be cut in half by the ant's sharp pincers.

 _Damn_.

The ants would have eaten every scrap of food within a mile, nonetheless this old house. He picked up the remains of one of the ants, and peered over what little meat was on it. The abdomen of the ant split open between his molars, its vital nutrition reinvigorating him. He picked up another, and another, until his stomach was gorged. It could easily be weeks before he ate again, and he needed to pack on some calories.

 _Better than nothing._

An old broken clock caught his attention with glare from the low sun. Its hands pointed up, indicating it had stopped working around twelve o'clock. He huffed in dismissal. The floor boards cried angrily underneath him as he shifted his weight around, deciding there was nothing left of value to keep him here longer. An odd odor stopped him from traversing further. It smelled of smoke, but something was foreign about it. Caustic vapors began to fill the room, and by the time he realized his error it was already too late to move.

The floor beneath him gave out, and Gireesh fell into the dark basement. Oblong eggs popped as he crushed an ant clutch, cushioning his fall. Dust and particles of wood filled the air, being cast upon by a lone ray of sunlight. The furious hiss stabbed the air once again, this time right in front of him. Gireesh looked up to see his large assailant. Acidic fluids dripped from the ant queen's mandibles, and the ancient wood of the floorboards had quickly melted underneath royal fury. She hurled another ball of acid in his direction, barely missing his thigh. He lunged forward, hitting his head on a low beam. Dazed and unable to see in the dim light, he grabbed at where he thought the queen's head would be. Some of her corrosive mucus dribbled into his palm as he found her. Tightening his grip, she screeched one final call of defiance as her skull split apart in a satisfyingly crisp snap.

The acid caused mild discomfort as it burned away his thick skin. He scraped the remains of the fluid onto a nearby wooden support pillar, and began to search the room. It was difficult to see anything of value in the waning light. Some tools on a shelf. A humming computer on a desk. Three empty barrels. Pushing past the queen was difficult, as she took up most of the room. He spun the computer around to face him. Its fission battery still chugging along, perpetually projecting faint green text across its small screen. He bent down to get a better view. Despite his poor vision, he was able to pick out the few words.

 **TERMINAL LOCKED**

 **PLEASE CONTACT AN ADMINISTRATOR**

 _No surprises here_.

Some pieces of likely inconsequential information lost to the wasteland, unless some computer genius manages to find their way here. He set the computer on the shelf, next to a wrench and another fission battery. The basement's natural light was nearly gone, the sun too low to enter through the broken floor anymore. Concerned that it would soon be too dark to escape, he grabbed the desk, lifted it over the corpse of the queen and set it down next to the wall. He gingerly climbed on top of it, and hoisted himself into the ruined kitchen above. The desk broke in two as his legs pushed off of it, its purpose served.

The surrounding sheds and barns provided a similar lack of fruitful exploit. The sun was below the horizon now, and civil twilight had begun. It was too dark to find his way back to the road. Gireesh had consented to the idea of resting until morning when he smelled something burning again. This time it didn't carry the scent of acidic reactions. A very faint glow indicated something large was on fire a couple miles to the east. Something that big burning meant a settlement, and that also means the road was in that direction. The only problem is, that also meant the settlement was occupied. And humans are rarely friendly to a deathclaw.

 _Really not in the mood to get shot tonight._

Flexing his shoulder blades, he began walking in the light's direction. It didn't take long for the dirt under his feet to turn into the asphalt of the highway, and it lead him to the fire's source. The town was surrounded by a twelve foot deep natural ditch, tall hills and makeshift sheet metal walls. The only easy access into the settlement was from the highway, a bridge covered in fresh-corpses that crossed the ditch. Most of the buildings were burning, providing enough illumination to see the amateur sign in front of the bridge. It listed the town's name, its population, and a warning. The population had been revised over time, with white paint crudely painted over the old numbers.

 **Kenton**

 **Population:** 57 49 35 28 **15**

 **Trespassers will be shot on sight. Survivors will be shot again.**

Gireesh looked between the burning town and the sign. With one of his long claws, he scraped off most recently added number, leaving the single digit 1 behind. He stepped over piles of sandbags and onto the bridge. Glancing at each of the bodies, he noted six in total. Four of them wore a random assortment of homemade leather and metal armor. The remaining two however, wore very distinctive red and black armor, made of repurposed football and baseball equipment. Caesar's Legion. A small ball of fear was dropped inside the stomach of the fourteen-foot tall beast. With no stopping in sight, the Legion brutally push ever outward in all directions from the Four States Commonwealth.

 _No matter how far I run, they're always in front of me._

With the mystery of who set the town on fire solved, Gireesh crossed the bridge. After passing several burning houses and more dead Kenton militia, the legionnaires came into view in the center of town. An old motor home provided cover to block their line of sight. There were five of them that he could see. While most of them carried machetes or spears, he could see a handgun at the side of the veteran legionary. They had two Kenton survivors on their knees, and several more had been crucified nearby. Hanging from their wrists, each of them was bound to a telephone pole. Their bodies had been severely beaten, and none of them looked conscious.

From behind, there was a loud crack that echoed against the walls of the houses, immediately followed by an intense hot pain in Gireeshes' left shoulder. Thick blood splattered onto the metal casing of the motor home. He spun around, and a legionnaire was working the bolt of his hunting rifle. As the .308 cartridge slid into its chamber, the young legionary lost his arm with a shout. The remaining troops ran to aid their fallen comrade. A machete embedded itself in his thick hide. Its owner was unable to pull it free and he lost his grip on the weapon. A spear was lodged in Gireeshes' spine.

Using his tail he knocked two of them onto their back, and he crushed their skulls under his feet. Two more charged, desperately hacking at his ankles with their machetes to little effect. With five-thousand pounds of force he slammed his right fist down on the tops of their heads, causing severe trauma and rendering them immobile. His left arm was struggling to follow any commands, but that ultimately didn't matter for the legion.

The final legionary was nowhere to be seen. Gireesh held his breath and listened to his surroundings. He heard his heart thundering in his chest, the wind blowing against a window shutter, a chorus summer insects, and labored breathing from on the other side of a house. The adrenaline was already wearing off, pain becoming defined and focused. Hurrying to end the conflict, he ran to the location of the panicked mouth breather.

The veteran legionary had his back to the wall, looking around the corner. He didn't see Gireesh until he was already beside him. Using his good arm, he stabbed through the pathetic armor and impaled his gut with his long claws. Gireesh lifted him off the ground until their heads were at a level height. His shiny metal helmet fell off, showing the defiance that burned in his eyes. He brought the barrel of his .44 Magnum level with the deathclaw's tennis-ball sized eye. As his blood steadily poured onto the dirt, the legionnaire's arm shook. His shot hit the bony ridge above Gireeshes' eye, deflecting off. Working his throat for the first time in a decade, he produced slow, deep, guttural words. His enunciation was crude, but it got the point across.

"You missed."

The legionnaire's pupils dilated as Gireesh opened his mouth wide. His teeth dug deep into the neck of the man, and he pulled the head free from its body. Blood poured into his mouth, filling it with that familiar metallic flavor. It had been ages since he tasted human. He was still gorged on ants, and so dropped the head. He shook his hand until the body was wrenched free from his claws. The headless corpse slammed into the wall of the house, staining it red.

A gust of wind agitated his open wounds. With a groan he walked into the town square. One of the two survivors was dead, his throat cut by legion when Gireesh wasn't looking. The remaining man was sobbing as the deathclaw approached him. Gireesh lowered himself to be less intimidating, and spoke in his primitive way.

"Fear not. I'm not hungry."

Using his index claw, he cut the binds on the man's legs. Immediately the man scrambled to his feet and ran off towards the horizon. To Gireesh, this was no concern of his. He already had done the man more than enough of a favor. He didn't need or want appreciation, he told himself. It was then he noticed two eyes staring at him from under the porch of a house. Sniffing the air, he could tell it was a human girl. She had hidden under the house when the legion came.

"I'm not going to harm you right now. You can come out."

The low rumble of his voice carried itself with more confidence and clarity this time. The fire's reflection in her eyes vanished as she blinked and crawled out from under the house. She attempted to stand, but stumbled face first into Gireesh. Eyes closed, she grasped for a hold to pick herself up by, finding his dry nose. Pushing off his face, she found footing and opened her eyes. The close proximity to him startled her, and she took several steps back. She stood around three and a half feet tall, but she was no younger than seven. She brushed the dirt off her dress, and looked in the direction the man ran in. Opening and closing her mouth indecisively, she looked like a fish gasping for air. Something in her mind won the argument, and she barely uttered four words that were nearly drowned out by a breeze.

"He is too big."

Her choice words surprised Gireesh, and he looked in the direction she pointed. A few moments passed before a flash lit the horizon, and a second later the sound of a frag mine detonating reached their ears. He looked back at her, and grumbled.

"Was."

Gireesh stood up to his full height and looked at the small child. He towered over her by a factor of four. Yet there she was, undeterred by his scale. The wind blew through the houses, whining about the state of affairs. Things were becoming increasingly dark, and the pain in his shoulder grew more focused. Down to one knee, he saw a pool of blood forming under him.

 _Guess that was more serious than I thought_.

He could hear a gasp as his head hit the ground. His eyelids slammed closed as he saw the diminutive girl fell to her knees, reaching for his face.


	2. Looming Loneliness

Small naked feet pushed against the multitude of rough scales on Gireesh's back. They found footing between his boney spines, and the girl grabbed ahold of the makeshift spear lodged in his flesh. She pulled on it as hard as she could, causing lightning to flow through his body. The arcs of pain began to rouse him from unconsciousness as she began losing her strength. She readjusted her hands closer to the base of the spear and gave a single violent tug with her whole body, the jagged scrap metal tip popped free and the giant beast's howl echoed off the surrounding houses.

His feet dug into the dry earth as he shot upwards, adrenaline flowing through his veins to ready his battered body to fight his attackers once more. He swung himself around violently, shaking off his assailant. Her small form hit the dirt hard and she rolled away, the wind knocked out of her lungs. He instinctively swung around, extending his arm to cleave his foe apart with the clawed hands his species was infamous for.

His arm already in motion, his head turned to see a strangely familiar faded pink dress. With a grunt, he struck the earth instead throwing up a cloud of fine dirt. Spiked head on a swivel, scanning the burning ruins of the small-town known as Kenton, he began recalling the events that befell him that evening. The merciless Legion sacking the town. His brutal fight against them. Their blood still tasted iron in his mouth. The pain across his shoulder and back. The girl under the house, the girl who now laid motionless a few steps away.

 _Damnit_.

He leaned down to inspect the child, unsure if she was still alive. His breath created swirls in the dust, he stopped to hear her shallow breaths and tiny heart beating.

"Hey, wake up."

He growled at her, trying to rouse her from her shocked state.

"If you don't wake up, I am going to eat you."

Still no response. He stuck out his long sticky tongue, a remnant of his unmutated ancestry, and licked the dirt off her face. This had the intended effect, as she gasped and inhaled deeply. The deathclaw's imposing face was all that filled her vision.

 _Finally_.

She sat up coughing, using the dress to wipe her face clean of saliva. She looked up at Gireesh and stared into his pale white eyes. Her irises reflected the light from the nearly full moon behind him. Her gaze wandered to her burning home, and the dead friends, family members, and legionnaires surrounding the pair. The orange light flickered across her skin as she turned pale and began shaking.

"Girl. Listen to me, I will only tell you this once. Kenton is gone. There is nothing left for you, and the only people coming here will be more Legion. I walked through Saint Faith a week ago, I saw a map that showed a city to the east-southeast of here. You can find help there, adults to take care of and protect you."

She turned back to look at him as he spoke. Her expression unchanged, a thousand thoughts behind glassy eyes. He continued speaking.

"It's not more than a day's walk. Just stay off the roads. Be tough. You will be fine."

Gireesh felt a small pang of guilt knowing he lied. Even if she walked the thirty odd miles to reach the City of Boys, it too would soon fall to Legion just like Saint Faith, Mount Zuma, and Kenton.

 _The girl was a survivor anyway, she might have a ghost of a chance yet._

He could not be bothered to care further than that. All that mattered was getting as far from the Legion as he could, his body could not take another fight like that. He turned off the path and began walking northeast.

The girl watched him walk away. Torn between her former home, and the ever smaller Gireesh on the horizon. Her heart strained, the small hairs on her arms standing up as her stomach became uneasy. The only option she saw open to her, she began to sprint after him as swiftly as her small legs would take her. She caught up to his steady pace and ran past him, halting in front of him.

He didn't stop.

She was knocked aside into a dead bush with a thump, giving him a sour look that he could not see. His gait remained unchanged as he kept going towards the perimeter of the town. Tangled in the brush, she scrambling to her feet. When she ran ahead of him this time, he came to a halt.

"You're too big" she gasped, out of breath.

He leaned down to her head, sighing hard enough that her hair fluttered from the resulting breeze. He spoke with clear frustration and exhaustion.

"You don't get to be my age, travel as far as I have, if you're not smart enough to handle a few frag mines. Now get out of my way, or I'll go through you like a door. Again."

She hesitated, but stepped aside; not wanting to pick herself off the floor again. Walking forward a dozen more feet, he stopped to inspect the ground in front of him. Inhaling deeply, the scent of TNT and iron came from the soil. Before he could act, the girl marched past him, arms held out as she swung from side to side. Her dirty feet craved a purposeful path through the minefield, showing a gap that could be exploited. She passed through unharmed, spinning around with a small smile. Gireesh grunted in disdain.

 _I will not be led around by a human, much less a child. I live and die by my own paths._

Reaching down with his uninjured arm, Gireesh picked up a large rock, as wide as a car's tire. Her mouth fell open he began raising the heavy stone above his head. Fear gripped her as she lost footing in the loose dirt in an effort to scramble out of harm's way. It came shooting forth from his clawed hand, impacting the ground a dozen feet behind her.

The girl couldn't hear anything anymore except a ringing in her ears. A wave of warmth flashed over her, she turned to see its source only to jerk her head away from the debris raining from above. Something very small and sharp cut through her left calf. The boulder had been split apart violently by the frag mine. Gireesh walked through the cloud of dust and debris, passing her by as he continued ever northeast.

She sat on her bottom, holding her legs close to her body. Her head fell onto her knees as she tried desperately not to cry. As the ringing in her ears began to subside slightly, she looked to the east-southeast where the deathclaw had told her to go. Small rocks dug painfully into her hands as she pushed off the earth with purpose.

A small line of blood fell down her leg, leaving its crimson mark on the soil as she began limping northeast.


End file.
